


when we all fall asleep

by llwydion



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 05:40:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18654037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llwydion/pseuds/llwydion
Summary: There are ghosts, they whisper. Ghosts which walk the silent halls of the old, ruined Jedi Temple. If you go, late at night, on a night when the wind howls around the eaves like a mother mourning her lost children, and you listen, very, very carefully, you might be able to hear it.Listen. Do you hear their dying screams?





	when we all fall asleep

_There are ghosts_ , they whisper. _Ghosts which walk the silent halls of the old, ruined Jedi Temple. If you go, late at night, on a night when the wind howls around the eaves like a mother mourning her lost children, and you listen, very, very carefully, you might be able to hear it._

_Listen. Do you hear their dying screams?_

When her father asks her later why he thought it would be a good idea to explore the ruins, she shrugs and mutters something about “the kids at school had a dare”. For that, she is grounded for a week, during which her mother casts stern, disapproving looks at her every time she even looks at the door.

She doesn’t know how to explain it. Sometimes, on certain nights, she’ll wake up from dreams of darkness and flame and feel a certain pull towards it, towards the direction of the old, ruined Jedi Temple.

They learn about its origins in Modern Galactic History, one day, when the teacher is droning on about the final days of the Clone Wars, the fall of the thousand-year Galactic Republic, and the far-reaching impacts it had on the galaxy. How the Empire rose from its ashes, and how through corruption and centralization of power it too crumbled at the hands of our current Jedi Master Skywalker, the only living Jedi Knight still trained in the ways of the old Order, and so on.

She rolls his eyes. How many times has she heard this by now? And how many more times does she have to sit through this lecture before she finishes this idiotic compulsory education every Coruscanti citizen is required to suffer through for the first eighteen years of their lives?

Someone is snoring behind her, and she feels really tempted to join them. Maybe, just a little bit…

_The ground beneath him is hot. Rivers of fire run across the surface of this molten planet, and its gaping orange maw opens beneath them, threatening to swallow them whole. The air is cloying, toxic gases and heat rising alike in an attempt to suffocate him._

_But he is untouchable in his rage, rage which has simmered for years, decades, eons, a slowly stoked fire in his belly slowly but steadily consuming him from the inside. He screams at the man standing across from him, hurls words and curses and hopes that they will tear him to pieces._

_The man across from him (brother, his mind whispers, brother, protector, master, friend, why are you **doing this?** ) stares at him._

_Then there are no more words, there are ‘sabers instead. Blue meets green, again and again and something hidden away in a little corner of his mind screams with the pain._

_The rest of him mercilessly squashes it down._

_They inch slowly towards the flames, slowly but surely._

She is woken by a hard rap to the head.

“Sleeping in my class now, young one?”

She nearly falls out of the chair with her panicked flailing. The stern woman levels a glare at her, and she smiles apologetically.

“Make sure you get more sleep tonight. I don’t want you falling asleep on the test tomorrow, or your grade will suffer.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She goes home, and does not sleep. The next day, she’s at school when some of her friends run up to her desk and dare her to come along on their annual exploration of some old ruins near the outskirts of the city.

She agrees, and two days later, on an evening where the sun is slowly lighting the world on fire, she shows up at the entrance of the old Jedi Temple.

“I dare you to go in and shout!” one of her classmates gleefully proposes.

She shrugs, because what’s the harm? The dead are dead, and the only living who dare to enter these ruins are silly schoolchildren like themselves.

The shadows are slowly spreading as she climbs up the once-grand staircase. When she reaches the top, she looks back for just a moment.

The entirety of Coruscant’s cityscape is spread out beneath her, like a vast concrete-and-durasteel jungle. The sun is setting, far in front of her, and for a moment she swears that the shadows of the buildings grow claws and reach hungrily for her. She shudders and turns around.

A cool breeze is blowing from somewhere within the building. It’s a little unnerving, she thinks, but remembers the science classes where they’ve talked about updrafts in old buildings and shrugs a little. She steps forward, and when nothing happens, she takes another step.

Before she knows it, a hundred steps have passed, and she’s standing in the middle of a vast, ruined hall. She hears the boys outside jeering and shouting, so she takes a deep breath, and gives voice to a long, loud stream of curses.

Amidst the applause from her crowd of spectators outside, she also hears something more subtle. Something small like a rock, falling from a great distance.

Beneath her, the ground crumbles, and she falls into the darkness, one hand outstretched above her, still grasping for the light.

* * *

 _In the depths under the council chambers_ , they whisper, _there lurks Despair. He sees everything, all possible futures. He sees them all, and he fears for his universe, because many of the universes are dying, dead, or ashes on the wind. He sees all future possibilities stemming from a single choice, and he weeps, because his universe, too, is doomed._

Her head hurts, and the rest of her body is one giant bruise. She doesn’t think she’s broken any bones, but it’s too dark to see properly down here. She casts her hand around for something, anything to help her see just a little better.

Her hand lands on something about half the length of her forearm, made with some metallic substance that shines dimly in the meager, dying light from the hole far above his head. There’s some type of a switch made of a darker, non-reflective substance on the side, and a hole in the top where something looks like it should protrude.

She picks it up in her right hand ( _not metal but skin this time,_ her mind whispers, _and the handle fits like it always did_ ) and flicks the switch on in a single, practiced move.

The lightsaber glows a pale blue color, and she stares at the metal she’s holding in her hand. She’s just found an old Jedi relic. Archaeology professors at the University would kill to be where she is now.

Now that she has a light source, the next thing she needs to do is find a way out of this underground hole. She sees a doorway at the end of the long, dark corridor, and she heads towards it.

Behind her, a pale blue shimmer blinks in and out of existence. In the moment when she turned on the lightsaber, it takes on the form of a tall Korun man who frowns and holds his hand to his chin as if in deep thought. Then it winks out of existence once more.

* * *

 _If you do manage to get into the Temple itself,_ they say, _beware of the library, for Wisdom makes his haunt there. If you run into Wisdom, heed his advice, but do not trust it. He is not Despair, he does not see all; what advice he gives is limited by his ability to comprehend. So do not trust Wisdom, though you may think him wise – he does not understand, and his ignorance is (will be, has been) his downfall._

The doorway at the end of the corridor leads her into a large, echoing hall, filled with strange rectangular objects that lead up into the darkness above. She approaches one curiously and realizes that they’re rows of shelves filled with flimsi books and datapads.

“Wow,” she breathes.

Something stirs in the deep at the sound of that youthful, childish voice, and a pale ghost winks into existence on top of one of the shelves.

“Come here, you did, young one?”

The girl startles. “Who – what – where are you? What are you?”

The ghost nimbly leaps down onto the ground.

“Ah, found it, I see.”

“What? Who? Found what?”

He points his gimer stick at the lightsaber the girl holds in her hand.

“I found this back there, in the other room. I’m sorry, is it yours? If so, here you go.”

The girl flicks the switch, and the ‘saber turns off. She holds the silvery handle out to the ghost in front of him.

“Hm, need this, I do not. You, who are you?”

“I – My friends call me R’iia.”

“Ask who your friends see you as, did I, hm?”

This throws the girl off considerably. “My parents told me to not talk to strangers.”

“A ghost, I am. Search your feelings, young one, if frightened of a ghost, you are.”

And indeed, something inside of her tells her that this small wizened creature in front of her is not intending to do any harm. Not yet, at least.

“My friends call me R’iia, but that’s not my name. At least, I don’t think so. My parents call me Rey.”

“Rey you shall be. Why here, are you, young Rey, and so far from home?”

“It was a dare, I swear, Master! I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“No harm done, young one, no harm done. A doorway, there is, to upstairs, to the left of the tallest shelves. Now, be on with you, young Rey. And remember, not everything is as it would seem.”

She furrows her brow and opens her mouth to ask another question, but the ghost fades out of existence. She shrugs and flicks the lightsaber on again, and on the far side of the room, she sees another dark doorway.

Behind her, the small green ghost flickers back into existence for a second and watches her progress with dark, knowing eyes. It sighs and bows its head before disappearing once more.

* * *

 _In the shadows under the Great Hall,_ they say _, waits Wrath. He is the most frightful of the beings. He wears black armor and he has no face. If you see him, run, because he is looking for his next victim. Run, and do not look back._

She enters a large, cavernous hall. From here she can feel the breeze from the outside, which means she’s close to the entrance once more. While she was wandering downstairs, the sun had sunk low, casting its dying light over the great pillars and dyeing everything red. The doorway at the other side leads to another flight of stairs, but she’s close, she knows.

As she’s making her way across the hall, she swears she feels a prickling on the back of her neck, like someone is watching her. She doesn’t see anything beside herself though, and her footsteps echo in the silence. For a moment, she swears she hears a faint, rasping inhale, right after her own.

( _His master put him in this suit, and his nerve endings are on fire always and it **burns** like he burned, like he wants the world to burn –)_

Right before she reaches the stairs, she turns around and looks once more, and there, in the center of the hall, backlit by the sun’s dying rays, she can see the faint outline of a man – or at least, she thinks it’s a man. He’s wearing some sort of black armor, maybe plastoid by how the red rays reflected off it, and he’s holding a red lightsaber in his hand.

She feels cold, all of a sudden. Not an external coldness, though the wind is starting to blow. Something inside of her feels cold and wrong and icy.

 _Run_ , something whispers to her. _Run, and do not look back._

She quickly runs up the stairs.

Behind her, she thinks she hears echoing, raspy breaths. She runs faster.

* * *

 _Venture into the Hall of Knighthood at your own risk,_ they caution _, because whispers follow your very footsteps. Here lies Courage, in all her glory and youth; she lived as she died, strong and unyielding, a Jedi to the very end. Though Courage may not bear any titles or hold any rank, she distinguishes herself by her words and her actions. She resists the madness with her inner strength. Learn from her what you can, but do not linger overlong, for the visions will drive you mad._

She knows she’s far above the entrance when she finally emerges from the narrow, winding staircase into a circular room halfway up the middle spire. It is a beautiful room, all high windows (shattered now, with fifty years of age) and winding pillars reaching upwards for the navy blue of the twilight sky. The sun is a sliver above the horizon, and night is coming. The thousand bright lights of Coruscant light up the floor of the room, falling onto carvings that were etched into the stone a millenia ago.

For a moment, she just stands and stares at the view and catches her breath.

( _Pillars of blue and green and purple, and hooded figures all around. He kneels in the center, his padawan braid heavy and dangling, as one of the hooded figures – his master – steps forward and severs his braid._

 _“Rise, Jedi Knight –_ )

When she turns around again, a blue figure is standing in the middle of the room. Rey startles badly, and reaches for the switch on her lightsaber.

It holds out its hands in a placating gesture and waves them around wildly. It also starts to explain itself, rather frantically. “I didn’t mean to startle you – don’t, don’t draw your ‘saber, there’s no need here.”

It’s kind of funny, and before she knows it she’s giggling. Her thumb relaxes from where it went, and her eyes grow wide as the blue figure solidifies into the form of a tall Togrutan whose eyes are as wide as hers. Rey gets the feeling she’s not younger than this stranger is.

“You shouldn’t light your ‘saber in here, because someone will see.”

With that one sentence, she feels a chill in the air. It echoes oddly in the silence, almost as if a million voices whispered it in tandem. She looks around, spooked.

“Ugh, sorry, sorry, the Chamber is like that sometimes. It adds effects to the most random sentences I say, and honestly I have to say it’s a little annoying.”

“The… Chamber? Where am I?”

“You’re in the Chamber, otherwise known as the Hall of Knighthood. It’s almost at the top of the Temple Spire.”

“How do I get out? It’s getting dark and I should be getting home.”

The Jedi smiles (because what else can she be, but a Jedi? Despite her youth and her uncoordination, there’s a sense of hidden steel).

“I’m afraid you climbed those stairs for nothing then. Or at least, most of them. You’ll have to go back down until you reach the first doorway on your right. Go through that; you’ll see a hall, and at the end of it is the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Go through that room, down the stairs on the other side, and through the central security room, then down the next flight of stairs, and you should find yourself in the Great Hall from which you entered.”

She takes a moment to process this, and nods determinedly.

“Thank you!”

And as she turns to leave, the Togrutan tells her one last thing.

“Be the candle, not the night, young one. May the Force be with you.”

* * *

 _The only place you can take a break is in the Room of a Thousand Fountains_ , they say. _There is the one place that the Light can be found without fail, even after fifty years of Darkness, for here waits Peace, the greatest of them all that dwell here. Watch carefully, for she is ever-elusive, only showing herself to those who truly desire and deserve her._

She meets no more Force ghosts in her journey down the stairs and through the smaller hall. When she steps through the doorway, however, she is greeted by a wave of fresh air that surprises her. She didn’t think, in a temple that has been closed for fifty years, that she would find anything green, let alone a room full of it. A waterfall burbles just on the edge of her hearing, trees reach for the glass ceiling high above, and everything is quiet and still. The stone of the walkways have stayed surprisingly intact, and she makes her way as best she can towards the other side of this room.

As she passes a large rectangular pool (“ _the Reflection Pool is one of the best places to feel the flow of the Living Force, Senior Padawan Sky –_ ), she spots the telltale blue flicker out of the corner of her eye, and she turns to face the pool.

A woman appears. Small, dark-haired, and stately in bearing, with a certain poise and elegance that comes with long years of training. She sees the same in Grand Admiral Sloane who appears on the holonews sometimes. The Grand Admiral has a certain rigidity to her, though, that this woman does not.

She gets the feeling this woman would have been a great mother, and somehow she finds herself tearing up.

She doesn’t understand.

The woman moves closer, one hand outstretched as if to comfort her, but when her hand touches Rey’s head it goes through with an unpleasant tingly sensation.

“Don’t cry, child. What’s done is done.”

( _He couldn’t save her he killed her it was all his fault she died and he did it he felt her windpipe collapse under his Force grip_ )

In that moment, it is as if someone else is speaking through her, someone who is so very sad and lonely.

“Will you ever forgive me?”

The woman looks startled and retracts her hand. Then her features tighten, like Mother’s does when she gets notes that Rey brings home from her teacher, and she speaks. Her voice is very pretty and lilting, and there’s a little bit of some unknown accent coloring her vowels.

“Grief, anger, regret, heartbreak – those things you can earn, and have. Forgiveness, though? Forgiveness is not yours to give, nor yours to have.”

“I am sorry, for what it is worth.”

The woman nods once, but says nothing more. The entity inside retreats, and she is left free to speak once more.

“Who are you? What just happened?”

The woman smiles at her.

“I suspect he decided to take over for a second there. I don’t think he’ll be doing it again.”

(A flash of memory: the woman, standing next to a man. Both are dressed in fine, dark clothing.

“So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.”)

“Who are you? Who am I, for that matter?”

“You, my dear, are more important than you can ever imagine, which is why you are here.”

Then she cocks her head, as if listening to something only she can hear.

“It is time, my dear, for me to go.”

“Wait, Pa –”

But the woman winks out like a holoscreen losing power, and all is quiet and still once more. The reflection pool ripples gently from some unseen breeze. She looks down into the water at the Rey she sees there.

For a moment, her reflection is replaced by that of a sandy-haired young man much, much taller than her.

Then the moment passes, the wind dies down, and it is just her and the pool and the silence.

She shivers, and turns to leave.

* * *

 _And whatever you do_ , they whisper, _don’t go into the communications room. If you’ve listened to Wisdom, you know what he knows: if into the security recordings you go, only pain will you find. Guilt resides there, and he never rests because of the pain he feels, the pain he has caused. Guilt will eat you alive, if you give him the chance._

On her way out, she accidentally stumbles through a section of sand, and she spends the next flight of stairs trying to get sand out of her clothing while grumbling to herself under her breath.

“Ugh, sand. I don’t like sand!”

“Why not?”

“It’s coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets – kriffing – everywhere!”

She swipes at the folds of her clothing, and a shower of fine grains pours out with each swipe. She sighs as she feels more sand enter his shoes with each step, and gives them up as a lost cause. While she was preoccupied with the annoying grains, she has worked her way into a dark room filled with what look like old holoscreens and keyboards scattered about.

One terminal still works, judging from the blue text on the screen and the blinking cursor waiting for input from a pair of hands that will never touch them again.

She lights her ‘saber, just in case, and looks around.

“Kriff, this is the worst idea I’ve had in a while.”

Then she recognizes the other presence in the room, startles, and curses up a blue streak when she strikes her shin against a large slab of concrete.

“Sithspit! Ow, kriff, that hurt!”

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you, I’m just… not used to other people being around here.”

Once she’s determined that her leg is fine, except for a colorful bruise the size of her fist forming on her shin, she looks up at the stranger.

The stranger is a tall old man whose face looks weathered beyond its years, like a rock exposed to the harsh elements of wind and sun. He’s dressed in plain brown and beige robes made of some rough homespun material, and his eyes are a bright, piercing grey-blue.

( _Master, Negotiator, General, father, brother, **betrayer liar murderer**_ )

“I knew someone, once,” he says, and there’s an odd undercurrent to his voice. “He didn’t like sand either.”

“Not liking it is an understatement,” she snorts. “I don’t understand why anyone would want it around at all.”

For a moment the blue ghost flickers oddly, and she catches a glimpse of reddish hair and a less careworn face. Then he’s back to his older self.

(A memory: a young man stands next to a pyre, his hair spiky and short. There’s a burnt section near his ear. Anakin holds his hand as his master moves to light the torch, and in the flickering firelight he reads sorrow and loss etched onto Obi-Wan’s face –

Another memory: He stands there on the landing platform, waiting for the shuttle’s boarding ramp to lower –)

The ghost is strangely hesitant to say anything, unlike the other ones she’s encountered (besides the one in the shadows. The less she thinks about that one, the better). It is almost as if he’s gone a very long time without talking to people – or she reminds him of someone he knows.

The silence stretches uncomfortably, and she squirms as she realizes he has been staring steadily at her face this entire time.

She opens her mouth to ask a question.

“Who am I?”

But he shakes his head.

“That is not the question I am here to answer.”

“Who are you?”

Again, the hesitation.

“That is a better question, but I’m not sure you want to hear the answer.”

She thinks back to the visions (memories) she’s seen, thinks back to the emotions she’s felt, and she smiles.

“I think I know the answer already.”

For the first time since she’s set foot in this temple, she’s the one startling a ghost.

“And what is your answer?”

She smiles and turns to leave.

As she does, she hears a familiar sigh.

“Rey, these are your first steps.”

* * *

 _And if you are so lucky_ , they say _, if the Force is truly with you, if you make your way back to the Great Hall as unscathed as you entered, then you will find there Choice. He has been waiting, and will always wait. He is waiting for the one to come who will listen and hear._

She climbs down that last flight of stairs, and as promised, she walks out into the Great Hall. There, as she was expecting, is one last blue-tinted figure, waiting for someone. He is sandy-haired and much taller than her, with a scar over his right eye. His right arm is metal, and his blue, blue eyes are very old.

He is waiting for her, she realizes.

“Who am I?” she asks.

The figure smiles.

“Rey,” he answers. “But you are also me.”

“And what does that mean for me? Will I become like –”

Her voice fails her as she remembers the being under the hall, cloaked in Darkness, wielding a ‘saber the color of fresh blood.

“Only if you so choose.”

She swallows a few times to remove the acrid taste of fear from her mouth. It still lingers in the back of her throat.

“And what now?”

“Well, the rest is up to you now, Rey.”

She doesn’t remember how she gets home, or what she says to the group of classmates that have been waiting out there fearfully for her to finally come out.

What she does remember is this:

A voice, in her dreams, speaking to her.

_Remember, Rey. Remember this, if nothing else. Life is fleeting, love is short. In the reign of things, there is only time and death and the Force._

_This is a new day, a new beginning. You are a new beginning._

* * *

_So don’t go into the old Temple, not unless you are desperate_ , they say. _That way lies ghosts and ruin and madness, but also hope._

 

**Author's Note:**

> In order of appearance (if you couldn't tell):  
> Rey - Rebirth  
> Mace Windu - Despair  
> Yoda - Wisdom  
> Darth Vader - Wrath  
> Ahsoka Tano - Courage  
> Padme Amidala - Peace  
> Obi-Wan Kenobi - Guilt  
> Anakin Skywalker - Choice
> 
> Discord: jmoon (#0444)  
> Twitter: @jmoon78825891


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